you are the risk i'll always take
by theonesthatcomeeasy
Summary: "I told you, I can't think about always right now, Damon. I just... with everyone around me dying, he's been my anchor. He's always been my anchor." "Maybe you don't need an anchor, Elena. Maybe you just need a lifejacket." / Post 3x22


**Hi! It's me again. Well, again if you read my previous one-shot I guess. Anyways, I didn't have the chance to get this beta'd like I'd originally planned (so excuse the grammar mishaps D:). It's one of the longest pieces I've ever written though, so I think that's an accomplishment all on it's own!**

**Also, I'd like to thank everyone who was kind enough to review my previous fic. All of the comments were immensely helpful and encouraging.**

**Thanks so much for reading.**

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Damon's been doing a lot of pacing lately. That, and worrying, which wasn't a spectacular combination for someone like him. Someone who solved his stress and got his own personal brand of therapy by ripping throats out, not by having "rational discussions" and all that other cheesy normal garbage. He was devastated, he was irate, and god damn it, he was thirsty.

"Damon,"

Of course, this is when his humanity chooses the perfect fucking moment to walk in, when he's ready to revert to his eat-and-compel routine. Can he even call her his humanity anymore? Technically, she's not even human anymore. Thanks to Stefan. "What do you want Elena?" Damon growls, hating how feeble the anger felt even to his own ears.

"I want to talk to you." Elena starts, running her fingers through her long hair.

Damon abhors how even now, even after she chose his brother, he can only concentrate on how beautiful she is. More stunning than Katherine, even, despite the fact that they were technically identical. He needs to stop thinking with his dick. So he folds his arms and resumes putting his defenses up; he doesn't have the time to be susceptible to her batting eyelashes.

"Who says I want to talk to you?" He conjures air quotes along the word talk. A futile attempt to maintain his sarcastic charm, and one she only rolls her eyes at.

"Cut the crap, Damon. You know what I'm talking about."

"Cut the crap?" He repeats dumbly, raising his eyebrows in what would be a comical way."And this is coming from you, the warrior princess of maintaining the bullshit. "

Elena's frame flinches so harshly he may as well have punched her in the stomach.

"What happened to cutting the crap in Denver? Or, how about when you automatically ran to my brother after all he's done to you this year? You can't tell me to do something you haven't grown the spine to do yourself, Elena."

She hates how mocking his voice sounds, then. She also detests how every word resonates through her head.

"This isn't about Stefan." Elena enunciates, voice sturdy as she can manage.

"It has everything to do with Stefan, and you know it. Everything between us has to do with my fucking brother, and how his feelings could get hurt. You're too afraid to imagine yourself with anyone but Saint Stefan, because this is the role you've set yourself in."

Damon hopes the words bites, and Elena hates how he always sees through her as if she was constructed with a material as flimsy as cellophane.

"I haven't set myself in any role, Damon. I love Stefan, I-"

"It's always going to be Stefan." Damon finishes dully.

"That wasn't what I was going to say, Damon."

"Then what were you? That you care about me? That your heart bleeds for my little redemption arc, but you'll automatically forgive Stefan for any shit he'll put you through." He steps into her personal space, and she doesn't step back.

"I didn't automatically forgive Stefan, Damon! He was compelled, Kl-"

Elena is attempting to convice herself more than Damon, now, and he only cuts her off in return.

"He was compelled for what, a few weeks? Look, I don't hold my brother accountable for this summer. He was dense as hell, but he was saving my ass. He's always saving my ass. But you, Elena..."

Damon's voice softens, to his dismay.

"He hurt you. Multiple times. He taunted you. He used you. For Christ's sake he almost drove you off the bridge your parents died on!"

"That you died on." He finished, pressing his lips together in a lousy attempt at keeping it together.

"And you haven't done worse to me?" Her voice cracks, and she's blinking back tears now. "You haven't abused Caroline, turned Bonnie's mom," He's shaking his head. "killed Jeremy."

"You hated me." Damon is trying his best to keep his voice even. Devoid of emotion.

"No, I didn't." She frowns, suddenly aware of how close they are. There's only centimeters between their bodies, now.

"I hated how I couldn't hate you, no matter how hard I tried to."

"Oh, you hated me alright." He grimaces, remembering the porch. The trip to Duke.

"No, I didn't. Because you'd hurt me in the worst of ways and then," She's crying. "make up for it in some absurdly sweet gesture."

"Do you know how hard it is trying to hate you when you do that?" She asks, voicing a vulnerability that nearly makes his eyes watwer. It's so hard not to take her in his arms and attempt to dry her tears with the sleeve of his Varvatos.

"Maybe I should make it easier for you." He says instead. Caustic bitterness suited him better, anyways.

"Or maybe we just need to wait for a bump." More tears seep down her face at this.

There's a stiff pause between them, a static more uncomfortable than the typical hum. He's about to storm out the door and look for something to nibble on (someone who looks nothing like the girl in front of him) when she finally speaks.

"Why did you make me forget?"

"Which time?" Damon grumbles.

"Either, both, I don't know."

He groans and sits down, figuring he'll need the sturdiness the couch provides for this particular exchange.

"I made you forget the first time because, like I said, I couldn't have anyone knowing I was back in town quite yet." He grimaces.

"I guess I never gave it back to you because that was our only memory not tarred by Stefan. I wanted that to myself."

She sits down beside him, ignoring all pretense of distance. "And the second?"

"The second," he pauses "the second was an unsuccessful attempt at being selfless. I should have figured it would have blown up in my face." He stares at her for a millisecond, before training his gaze back to the floor.

"Nothing you didn't already know, of course."

Her eyebrows furrow, at that. He was right, she did know. Just not what it actually felt like to feel so wholly loved. Not like that. The kind of tenderness that he pressed his lips to her forehead with. The brand of raw feeling he spoke with. The kind of love that blatantly consumed him.

And her.

"It was different, though." She says, and he sighs nosily at this.

"Because it wasn't muttered through a haze of sweat or because I wasn't pissed?"

"Both." She answers quietly.

"It was both. I've never seen you so tender like that before." He reverts his gaze back to the ground, and she subconciously scoots closer to him.

"Yeah, well," He swallows loudly, ignoring thte fact their legs were touching at that instant.

"Don't expect it again anytime soon."

"Don't say that." She whispers meekly.

"Well, I guess you'll have forever to find out." He clears his throat.

"Yeah," she gazes at him "we have forever." They're staring each other down, now, eyes communicating what they both can't say.

"I'm not gonna wait forever for you, you know. You chose Stefan."

"I told you, I can't think about always right now, Damon. I just... with everyone around me dying, he's been my anchor. He's always been my anchor."

"Maybe you don't need an anchor, Elena." Damon utters with the calm diction he only possessed on rare occassions. "Maybe you just need a lifejacket."

The time she's the one who looks away.

"I'm not going to pretend I though you'd pick me, Elena." He says when she doesn't speak.

"But you and I both know what we have goes beyond caring." She nods silently before speaking faintly.

"Beyond an understanding." He grins softly at her words, eyes conveying a centuries old fatigue.

"Yes, a lot more than an understanding by now."

"I won't wait forever." He repeats his earlier sentiment. "but that doesn't mean I won't wait at all."

She reaches for his hand to grasp, and he strokes hers' absentmindedly. She rests his head in the crook of his neck and just breathes him in. It's then she realizes she doesn't want to make him wait. Not anymore. Not because she feels pity for him. Not because he loves her more than anyone in the entire world and she feels every fiber of it.

It's because she doesn't want to wait any longer. She has forever now, but she'll regret it if she wastes another second of it. Not without Damon.

_"It's right, just not right now."_

Well maybe it is right now. Maybe it isn't, but she knows she can't spend another two years not knowing. Elena can wait for tomorrow, though. She nestles further into his chest, and Damon idly wraps an arm around her waist. Pressing a gentle kiss to her temple, he resolves to just resting his head against hers and closing his eyes, gently raking his hand through her hair.

Consequences be damned.

She walks in the next day relieved. She talked to Stefan, once and for all. And god, she did love Stefan. But they just weren't good for each other anymore. He desperately needed to figure everything out. To help resolve his control. He was hesitant at first, citing Elena's recent transition as a possible hazard before he left. Stefan finally decided that Elena's new trek into vampirism went as stellar as Caroline's. That she had both Caroline and, yes, Damon to help her through it. He said his goodbyes and packed his bags early that morning.

She'll miss him. She'll always miss her first real love. But she can picture herself in a world without him. She doesn't need him like she used to. He's still her anchor, but, as Damon said the previous day, she doesn't need an anchor. Elena doesn't need to be held up by Stefan anymore, she's adapted to do that on her own. She just needs help. She needs support. She needs a lifejacket.

She needs Damon.

And she's resolved on telling him that today. Right now, even. It's finally right now for them. So when he speeds in front of her when she opens the door to the boarding house like he always does, she's ready to tell him that she's finally prepared to think about always. How much he's come to mean to her (so much more than an understanding). She doesn't just care about him. Not anymore.

Damon is the first to speak.

"Stefan left for," he pauses, hand geusturing lazily, "wherever he went off to. Probably a place with lots of grazing little bunny rabbits. So why are you he-"

She interrupts him, lacking the paitence to wait any longer. "I know, we broke up."

He raises his eyebrows.

"So what, back on the Ross and Rachel routine?" She shakes her head feverently.

"For good."

"Please, there's never a 'for good' with you two." Damon rolls his eyes satirically.

"Now there is. We're different people than we thought we were. We've both changed too much this year." Elena bites her lip nervously. "I've changed, I guess he stayed too much the same."

"Oh, really, how have you changed? The fangs haven't distorted you that much, Elena." He grins, and she can tell his defenses have resumed their usual positions.

"I don't know, I became stronger, I think." She exhales, gazing at him for an extended period of time.

"And not just in the physical sense, warrior princess." Damon agrees.

"I fell in love with somone else." She murmurs softly, watching the shell-shocked expression register on Damon's face.

"Oh really?" He sputters a couple of octaves high than his normal tone, disbelief obstructing his ability to act aloof.

"And who would that be?" Elena answers him by pressing her lips to his, fingers tangling in his hair. It's not like their first kiss on the porch. And it's not their hot and heavy session in Denver.

It's sweet, passionate, and god dammit, it's consuming the both of them. After much groping (is that his tongue?) they finally separate, still millimeters apart. He gasps in a very un-Damon-like manner and cautiously fingers a stray lock of her hair behind her ear.

"You know I can't keep on doing this if it's going to be one step forward and eleven steps back."

"It won't be." She promises finally. "Because I love you, Damon. And I don't care if there's a bump. I just need you and we'll get through it because that's what we always do."

He has that stunned look in his eyes again, like she's the most precious thing in his universe and he can't believe she could ever feel the same.

"I love you." He mutters, peppering kisses all along the shape of her face.

"I love you so fucking much." He repeats in between pecks as she grins blindingly.

"I love you too." She echoes, finally silencing his frenzy with her lips against his once more.

"I'm sorry it took me so long to figure out."

"Don't be." Damon says, looking at her with that aching tenderness once more.

"It was worth it. All of it was worth this."

She's reminded of the words he managed to stutter on his deathbed._ "Because then I never would have met you."_ and once again is uncertain to how she ever pictured them any other way.

"You were right. This is right. It was right then. And it's right now.


End file.
